The Heartfelt Truth of Neil Gaiman

If you—like me—essentially imprinted on Neil Gaiman’s writing several decades ago, it’s still probably a bit jarring to suddenly find out your favorite author somehow got insanely popular while you weren’t looking. Not to be all Brooklyn hipster about it, but for those of us who stumbled into his work (The Sandman) by way of a Tori Amos song (“Tear in Your Hand”) back in the 1990s and subsequently ended up wearing ankhs unironically and making references to sauntering vaguely downwards toward our various destinations, it’s honestly just weird.

Not weird bad, or anything, and it’s not like Gaiman hasn’t had legions of devoted readers prior to this specific moment in time. (His work, as it likely did for so many others, came along precisely when I needed it to.) But it is objectively strange that we can now stroll over to the local Barnes & Noble and find a copy of one of his books with David Tennant’s face plastered on the cover or scoop up a Funko Pop version of Shadow Moon from an online toy outlet. Gaiman’s genius is no longer solely the province of prickly Goths and moody English majors, and while that’s almost certainly for the best for us all in terms of our society at large, it does take a bit of getting used to. Particularly if you happened to be one of those English majors once upon a time.

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Good Omens, The Sandman, and American Gods have all been adapted for television within the past five years, with a rather astounding degree of success and accuracy—certainly to the spirit, if not always the letter of the author’s most popular works. (And we just won’t talk about whatever that third season of Gods was.) A television series based on Anansi Boys is waiting in the wings, set for release in some as-yet-undetermined post-strike future. The Ocean at the End of the Lane had a successful run as a play in London’s West End and hopefully will, if there’s any justice, make it to Broadway someday. It suddenly feels like Gaiman is everywhere, with the sort of regularity that is honestly delightful to witness.

One can only hope this success in other mediums draws more readers to the wonderful world of Gaiman’s books, which are all genuinely on another level of excellence—-no matter how good the various stage or onscreen adaptations happen to be. And while it’s true that we’re living in a golden age of genre fiction and that more incredible stories are hitting shelves right now than any of us (or at least me) could ever manage to attempt to read in a single lifetime, there’s still somehow no one out there no one who’s doing it quite like Neil Gaiman, even after all this time.

A writer of richly imagined stories that run the gamut from fantasy and horror to science fiction and folklore, Gaiman’s works are shot through with dry, often dark humor and dire, dangerous circumstances. But for all that he frequently writes of bleak subject matter, telling stories of fallen angels, lost gods, and occasionally Death herself, even the most alien of his stories and complex fictional worlds are grounded in heartfelt and all too human truths.

Neverwhere’s London Below reflects many of the appeals and dangers of the world of London Above. Good Omens’ Crowley and Aziraphale are celestial beings who work to thwart Armageddon because they love the things humanity has created. (And each other, but that’s a different piece. Next time!) The deities of American Gods are tied to the human world by their need for people to believe in them—in something, in anything—-and the book’s exploration of identity is uniquely and specifically grounded in the land in which it takes place. In Gaiman’s world, even the great Sherlock Holmes gets old and lonely, and the most interesting child of Narnia is the one who was forced to leave it behind. David Bowie might very well have once been a ruler of galaxies, and the greatest of Great Old Ones was once afraid of the people he came to conquer.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that Gaiman writes happy stories. He doesn’t. Not really. Sure, some of his tales have endings that can be interpreted as happy—or at the very least, generally satisfying—ones. His stories are extremely clever and often laugh-out-loud funny in the most unexpected of ways. But they’re also frequently shot through with pain and trauma, flecked with real fear and genuine loss, with poor choices, betrayals, and ruinous, selfish mistakes. Because what Gaiman really excels at, is this: He writes stories that are true. (He referred to his own work as good lies that say true things, and I’ve never been able to come up with a more apt description when trying to describe his work to others.) It’s what makes his characters feel so rich and relatable, his worlds feel so familiar, no matter how different they might appear on the surface.

He’s not inventing something new—instead, he’s merely shining a light on the underside of the things we already know, allowing us to see what’s hidden and heartfelt, often giving the mundane a special sheen we’ve maybe never noticed before. And while the escapism inherent in his storytelling is magical to be sure, it’s also grounded in our all too real—and, again, all too human—need for hope: that love can quite literally save us all, that who we choose to be matters, that there is more than one way to experience the world around us, that there is something bigger, more mystical, and more powerful than we can understand happening all around us all the time. (Whether we choose to see it or not.)

Gaiman also remembers what so many modern fantasy writers seem to have forgotten: That there is no point in darkness without light to go alongside it. Our current pop culture landscape—with its embrace of dystopian fiction, difficult antiheroes, and gleefully dark themes—seems to find it difficult to tell stories about goodness or belief with anything approaching sincerity. But Gaiman, whose works frequently touch on so many uncomfortable, difficult, or even downright frightening topics, never forgets that a big piece of fantasy is about hope, and our collective longing to believe in something better—or possibly just something that’s different—than the place in which we find ourselves.

Yes, his worlds can be full of dark threats. But they are also ones where magic is real and the divine can walk among us, where humanity creates beauty as easily as it does destruction. Or, as Gaiman himself once described it, “A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.”

In fiction, as in life, hope is a categorically brave act. It is an active verb. A choice. And so often in Gaiman’s stories, it’s presented as redemption, perhaps even a kind of salvation—-this choice to believe, to hope, to keep faith, even, and perhaps most especially, in the face of things that can steal your heart. (At the very least, it’s a worthy alternative to the darkness, apathy, and despair that is so often prevalent in the work of many of his contemporaries.) It’s why we tell stories in the first place, isn’t it? To dream a little bigger, believe a little harder, and see the truth a little more clearly than we did before?

(Happy birthday, Neil. And thank you.)

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB